A Pox Upon Thy House: Vague and Annoying Sources of Symptoms

A commenter writes in:

I have been wanting to increase my [carbs] and veggies as its pretty much zero right now, I have never felt better(though the current state is less than perfect) but meat is not cheap and I want to have a more diverse diet. But it seems that every time I eat something plant based I start getting acne, rashes, asthma, dry skin and other minor annoyances again, lately I tried to eat potatoes and I immediately noticed a minor shortness of breath and it didn't take more than a couple of days before my face was glowing red and I started getting dry flaking skin. You say you eat rice - brown rice?

Yes, this is a real problem. Many of us started paleo because of sensitivities and diversifying our diets can be frustrating. I don't think this was a problem for humans in the old days, but modern humans have a different immunological milleu. What causes it? A major hypothesis is that it's caused by too-clean environment in childhood, which we can't exactly undo now.

Before I started messing around with my diet and going veg*n and then paleo, I never had acne. But since I went vegetarian I've had it occasionally and while paleo has lessened it, it still appears occasionally, usually alongside scalp issues and keratosis pilaris. Today was one of these days.

My diet before vegetarianism was absolutely atrocious, but I almost never ate vegetables and it was fairly bland. Unfortunately, now that I have discovered the deliciousness of hot peppers, I realize they are the probable cause of my skin issues. I also have problems with many members of the cabbage family.

If you are having a frustrating problem like this, I highly recommend checking out the failsafe diet (the site used to have a more awesome name: Plant Poisons and Other Nasty Stuff). The best strategy is probably to introduce families of plants into your diet gradually until you figure out what is making you sick. The author of that site notes that once she identified some problem foods and avoided them for awhile, she was eventually able to add some back in. Interestingly, she also discovered she had thyroid disease.

For me, it seems the reaction is quite complex. I can eat hot peppers sometimes, but if I eat them in the last week of my menstrual cycle that's when they really wreck my skin.

As far as starches, poatoes are known to be a problem for many people because they are in the nightshade family and contain solanine and some potent glycoalkaloids. Yams are much better tolerated and another rec would be cassava, which is prized for its hypoallergenic qualities. Brown rice is full of stuff that can be a problem, white rice much less so.